LIKE a hysterical builder trying to stop leaks on a
spilling dam wall,government's attempts to plug the loopholes in the Land
Acquisition Act areunlikely to stop the flood of legal cases government is
losing.

Zanu PF last week bulldozed through parliament an amendment to
the LandAcquisition Act - the fourth since the Bill was tabled in 2000 -
toregularise the serving of Section 8 notices on farmers.

Analysts
have said the amendment will not solve the problems besettingcommercial
agriculture because of the unnecessary haste in passing the Bill.The Bill
now awaits President Robert Mugabe's signature to become law.

The 1993
Act was amended once in 2000, again in 2001 and twice this year,making it
the second most tampered with document after the constitution,which has been
amended 16 times.

The Bill comes at a time when government is making
frantic efforts tojustify its promotion of land-grabbing which has pushed
the country'sagro-based economy to the brink of collapse. Economists say the
full impactof the skewed land reform programme on industry is still to be
felt.

Attempts to evict farmers using defective law have put the legal
system in afix. Magistrates and law officers, torn between applying the law
as set downand obeying political directives, have revealed that in a number
of lawsuitschallenging evictions political pressure has compromised the
execution oftheir duties.

Opposition MDC agriculture spokesman Renson
Gasela said the haste with whichthe amendment had been drafted left it with
even more flaws.

"We haven't seen the last of this Bill through
parliament," Gasela said.

"The Land Acquisition Act has been amended four
times since the start offarm invasions in the year 2000 and in all those
efforts it has consistentlyfailed to address the situation, mainly because
it was being done in such ahurry ending up overlooking many
issues."

The Bill seeks to increase penalties for commercial farmers
defying evictionorders and to validate preliminary acquisition orders which
had beendeclared invalid and illegal by the courts because they were not
properlyserved.

Under the new rules, farmers will be forcibly removed
from their land sevendays after being served eviction notices, instead of 90
days as before. Thefine for refusing to comply was also increased fivefold
to $100 000.

The Land Acquisition Act had failed to legalise government's
attempts toevict farmers whose properties are bonded to financial
institutions.

In a landmark ruling in August, a High Court judge said
eviction orders wereinvalid if they had not been first served to lending
institutions thatfarmers were indebted to.

The new amendment seeks to
remedy this by stipulating that theseinstitutions be served with a 30-day
notice before the government takes overthe farm.

Farmers who had
gained some hope when their eviction orders were ruledinvalid by the court
are now likely to see them reissued, leaving them verylittle time to pack
their bags. Advocacy group Justice for Agricultureclaims a seven-day notice
period contradicts provisions in the constitutionfor reasonable
notice.

Chinamasa said the government would continue to tinker with
the LandAcquisition Act as long farmers continued to go to court to
challenge itsvarious provisions.

He told the Zimbabwe Independent
this week that the changes he made inparliament were meant to hasten the
process. Legal challenges by commercialfarmers would be met by further
legislation, he said.

"What you must realise is this is a mammoth
exercise and there are somecommercial farmers who may want to frustrate the
process and we have torespond to that," said Chinamasa.

"If new
challenges come we will not hesitate to go to parliament and plugthe
loopholes."

Justice for Agriculture (JAG) has said it will challenge the
LandAcquisition Bill on the grounds that it is unconstitutional.

JAG
chairman David Connolly said the amendments compound the illegal basisof the
existing legislation.

"The amendments are clearly designed to plug the
holes which have beenexposed by taking matters through courts," Connolly
said.

"Giving a farmer seven days notice to vacate his farm is
unconstitutional.The Constitution of Zimbabwe provides that 'reasonable
notice' must be givento the owner and any other person having an interest in
the property."

He said the changes were unreasonable and motivated by
malice. "Thebackdating of the legislation is itself grossly unreasonable
andconstitutionally unsound and because of these reasons we will not delay
inchallenging the changes," he said.

The difficulty in implementing
the law has been compounded by Zanu PF'sinsistence on using the land for
electioneering purposes. As legalpractitioner Tawanda Hondora argues in his
analysis of the BroadcastingServices Act, the February 2000 referendum
marked the turning point in theland issue.

"There is merit in the
argument that the referendum dramatically proved thatZanu PF's political
dominance was under siege from a determined civilsociety," Hondora said.
"Treading in the unfamiliar waters of defeat andsensing that its formally
and seemingly unbreakable dominance was underthreat, the government sought
to desperately save face.

"It explained its defeat as having been caused
by whites and unpatrioticblack Zimbabweans. A clause in the draft
constitution, which forms part ofSection 16 of the current constitution,
provided for the acquisition ofcommercial farmland, which farmland was
almost exclusively owned by whites,"he said.

Analysts argue this
explains why just after the referendum, farmoccupations, spearheaded by the
Zimbabwe National Liberation War VeteransAssociation members, Zanu PF
supporters and masterminded by governmentintelligence units, began. The list
of invaders now includes youths from theBorder Gezi Training Centre and
members of the army.

Hondora also argues that the farm invasions were not
spontaneous as Mugabeand his cohorts claim.

"To further bolster the
theory that the farm invasions were not spontaneous,Zanu PF's campaign
slogan during the referendum and the June 2000parliamentary elections was:
'Land is the economy and the economy is land'.

"Notwithstanding that
these brutal acts against Zimbabwean citizens arewell-chronicled, the police
have been exceedingly partial and veryinsignificant prosecutions have been
initiated, suggesting governmentconnivance," he said.

This was
evident even in Zanu PF's own campaign material titled "Election2000: The
People's 15 reasons for voting Zanu PF".

"Zanu PF has decided that 20
years is enough to be polite to white farmersand Britain and has now started
taking back your land following the passingof the Constitutional Amendment
(Number 16 Act, 2000) by your parliament,"the election material
read.

The government had by now dumped the rule of law and commitments
made in1998 to the international donor community who had been willing to
sponsorthe programme.

"It is astounding for a
government, which has the land reform programme asits sole project, to
bungle the process and come back to seek leave of thisHouse," Ncube said.
"What the minister is saying is that he wants tooverrule the judiciary. In
other words, he is asking us as parliament totake away rights conferred on
aggrieved parties by a court of law."

South Africa will pay the price of
cowardiceTHE Harare Declaration, agreed by Commonwealth heads of government
in 1991,is unambiguous. "We believe in the liberty of the individual," the
leadersproclaimed, "in equal rights for all citizens regardless of race,
colour,creed, or political belief, and in their inalienable right to
participate bymeans of free and democratic processes in framing the
societies in whichthey live."

In Abuja this week, the heads of state
of South Africa and Nigeria betrayedthat undertaking and thereby diminished
the Commonwealth as a moral force inworld affairs.

Presidents Thabo
Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo, who together with AustralianPrime Minister John
Howard make up the so-called troika of "club" leaderstasked at Coolum in
March with deciding the organisation's response toZimbabwe's flawed
presidential poll, have decided to do nothing about thedeteriorating
situation here. Instead they have said they will review theposition in six
months time.

President Robert Mugabe has thereby bought time to continue
his damagingpolicies that have not only sabotaged agricultural production
and spawnedfamine but established a tyranny that violates every single
aspirationcontained in the Harare Declaration.

The "liberty of the
individual" has been systematically eroded by draconiansecurity and media
legislation passed this year and by a concerted attack onthe judicial
system. "Equal rights for all citizens regardless of race,creed or political
belief" has been undermined by statements by thepresident himself that
whites are second-class citizens (April 17) andattempts by the
Registrar-General to strip them and second-generation blackZimbabweans of
their citizenship in order to prevent them voting.

The "inalienable
right" of Zimbabweans to "participate by means of free anddemocratic
processes in framing the societies in which they live" has beenmade a
mockery of by Zanu PF's no-go zones during elections, the role of thepolice
in preventing opposition rallies, and the closure of voting stationsin
opposition strongholds. Opposition supporters have been abducted,tortured
and in some cases murdered in Zimbabwe since 2000. Thoseresponsible for the
killings are still free as are the killers of whitefarmers.

This is a
society in which only the very brave exercise their constitutionalright to
participate in the democratic process. Two opposition MPs electedwith large
majorities in 2000 were recently told by Mugabe they had no rightto remain
in Zimbabwe except in prison.

Mbeki and Obasanjo, by declining to
exercise the responsibility bestowed onthem by other Commonwealth leaders in
Coolum, have in effect turned a blindeye to this record of misgovernance.
They have ignored the legislationpassed this year to curb democratic rights.
They have ignored the assault onthe judicial system exposed this week by
United Nations special investigatorParum Cumaraswamy. They have ignored the
impunity granted to Mugabe's rogueagents across the country. Above all they
have ignored the suffering imposedon millions of Zimbabweans by Mugabe's
violent and often illegal landseizures.

These problems will now spill
across our frontiers rendering them much lessamenable to solutions in six
months time. Botswana's ruling party this weekcomplained about the
consequences of anarchy in Zimbabwe. But the SouthAfricans continue to wring
their hands in helplessness. Minister in thePresidency Essop Pahad says he
doesn't like the words "muscular diplomacy".

"It's too macho," he says.
"If somebody explains what this means, other thanshouting abuse, then I
myself would be very happy to look at it."

Here it is in terms even he
might understand. It means not glossing over amanifestly stolen presidential
poll in which the opposition was terrorisedby state-sponsored militias and
electoral rules were manipulated by theincumbent. It means spelling out
support for the democratic process, freedomof the press and independence of
the judiciary - principles set out in SouthAfrica's so-called ethical
foreign policy and enshrined in its ownconstitution.

It means not
being afraid of underlining those principles because they mightembarrass a
neighbouring tyrant. In other words it involves doing the rightthing, not
ducking the issues as Pahad does on the feeble grounds that SouthAfrica has
its own problems.

By failing to bite the bullet of Zimbabwe's misrule,
Mbeki and Obasanjo willnow find it more difficult to obtain trade and
investment flows under Nepad.That will demonstrate to them something they
evidently can't grasp: that byproviding shelter to a rogue ruler and failing
to even criticise him theycould end up sharing his isolation.

NEW African editor Baffour Ankomah has evidently picked up a tip
or twoduring his recent visit to Zimbabwe when he was hosted by officials of
theDepartment of Information and ZTV. His editorial in the magazine's
Septemberissue ("Baffour's Beefs") resembles a discursive Mahoso-type
monologue whichis littered with racist generalisations and historical
inaccuracies. LordLugard, for example, would have had difficulty writing his
Dual Mandate in1965. If Ankomah is unable to tell a republication from an
original issue heshould be doing another job!

But after a rambling
essay which wanders from Lugard to Saddam Hussein,detecting an imperialist
conspiracy at every turn, he ends with the threat:"To be continued next
month."

In other words, despite being an editor, he was unable to match
his copy tothe space available! And a little more attention to detail would
not goamiss. It would be useful for instance if he could spell "Brithish"
and"Argentineans" correctly. A map on Page 29 of the September edition of
NewAfrican clearly shows the Anglo-American base of Diego Garcia on the
BritishIndian Ocean Territory of Chagos Archipelago. But New African's
contributorand its caption writers refer to it as the British Indian
OverseasTerritory. And the island is at the centre of their story!

An
"Endtail" article at the back reproduces President Mugabe's speech atHeroes
Acre last month but doesn't say when or where it was delivered.

Ankomah's
magazine is in the forefront of portraying Nepad as a conspiracyto undermine
the Pan-Africanist project. It is, of course, a bid to rescueAfrica from the
wreckage of that project. The Sunday Times reported thisweek that African
Union secretary-general Amara Essy is leading rearguardresistance to Nepad.
He heads a cabal of African leaders which includesRobert Mugabe who want to
sabotage the Nepad plan by making it subordinateto the AU political
framework. It is important everybody was brought "insidethe boat", Essy told
the South African paper.

But he did not say that some people in Harare
and Windhoek were trying tocapsize the boat. President Mbeki and Kofi Annan
are only too aware of that,which is why they are pressing ahead. Mugabe must
not be given a veto overNepad. He, together with allies like Ankomah,
represent the old Africa ofNkrumah's dreams which ended in economic decay.
It is the Africa we seetoday in Zimbabwe's desolate
landscape.

Another Mugabe ally is David Nyekorach-Matsanga who
represents, or isperhaps the full membership of, something called African
Strategy. Theopinions he expresses at regular intervals enable the
government press tomake claims such as this in the Sunday Mail last weekend:
"The government'sposition on the proposed meeting tomorrow (of the
Commonwealth troika inAbuja) was supported by many people including African
diplomats, politicalanalysts and officials from respectable international
organisations".

We are pleased to hear that the Sunday Mail's sources are
now respectableand that the "African diplomat" who has seen service at the
Herald is nowspeaking to the Sunday Mail from his base at Munhumutapa
Building. ButMatsanga is a decidedly dubious analyst. He has told all sorts
of storiesabout the Commonwealth Observer Mission and its Nigerian leader
which havemore to do with partisan persuasion than any kind of professional
researchand we have yet to learn how he became an election observer himself
withoutanybody knowing about it.

We would also like to know where
African Strategy gets its money from.Presumably it publishes its accounts?
Any why is Matsanga based in London?Can we add him to our list of pro-Zanu
PF zealots like Ankomah and theHerald's WT Kanyongo who don't love Africa
enough to live in it?

Muckraker was impressed by Harare Mayor Elias
Mudzuri's robust response tothe strike by municipal employees last week
during which they turned offwater supplies to high-density
suburbs.

"Such an act of sabotage undertaken at a time when there is a
choleraoutbreak in the country, when terminally ill patients in hospitals
and homesneed water, and when residents prepare to go to work is totally
unacceptableand should be condemned in the strongest possible terms,"
Mudzuri said.

Water supply falls under essential services in terms of the
Labour RelationsAct, he pointed out. He might also have pointed out that the
HarareMunicipal Workers Union is a Zanu PF-affiliated union. Its workers
wereopposed to the ZCTU stayaway earlier this year but are now
particularlyindignant that the mayor won't let them hold meetings during
working hours.This is evidently what they are used to.

Many of these
"workers" are the very same people Mudzuri has been trying tofire because
they were improperly recruited by Zanu PF officials ahead ofthe March poll.
And Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo is threateningthe mayor with
dismissal because he refuses to retain people whose onlyclaim to a job is
their party card.

Now they have shown their true colours by making life
unbearable for cityresidents. This is how Zanu PF sabotages democratic
governance in Zimbabwe'scities where it was decisively rejected by voters.
Let's note thefifth-column role played by the Municipal Workers Union on
behalf of itspolitical masters and support the mayor in his quest to chop
the dead woodin Harare.

Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri says
his health is "very much undercontrol". He was responding to a report in the
Mirror that suggestedotherwise. Only "Almighty God" would decide his future,
he said, "not abunch of speculative, poor rumour-mongers or bar-talk
peddlers in the formof journalists and editors-in-chief".

He wasn't
asked how his big toe was coming along. His feet were injuredduring the
liberation war, we understand, and Chihuri felt he was entitledto
compensation from the War Victims Compensation Fund as a result. The $138664
he received was "peanuts" compared to what he went through, he told
thecommission appointed to investigate looting of the fund in 1997. The
medicalspecialists who examined him didn't appreciate the seriousness of
war, hecomplained.

"I have scars on my back I didn't even claim for,"
he was reported astelling the commission. When a commissioner had the
temerity to ask if thiswas likely to lead to further claims, Chihuri
objected calling him"disrespectful". Asked what medication he was using, he
said he rubbedvaseline on the injured toe.

Information minister
Jonathan Moyo claimed that the only people who were nothappy with the police
chief were "puppets and criminals".

We can't understand what puppets
would be doing at the Mirror, that paragonof nationalist virtue. Nor did
Moyo explain why the criminals who blew upthe Daily News' printing press and
the VOP premises should be unhappy whenthey remain free. Or a number of
political killers who are still on theloose. Surely they're all very happy?
President Mugabe is so happy he hasrenewed Chihuri's term for another
year.

Moyo has also been holding forth on the Blackie case. Responding
tocriticism of the government's handling of the case, Moyo said South
AfricanChief Justice Arthur Chaskalson's remarks were "prejudicial" and did
notserve the administration of justice in Zimbabwe.

He then ranted
and raved about "whites in South Africa who have links withformer Rhodies
and others who may not be white but who are like them".

He didn't say how
many millions of South African voters his grossgeneralisations were designed
to encompass. But the political scienceprofessor did manage to get the date
of the 1922 referendum wrong and hisremarks about "intimidating real or
potential criminals" should be used bythe defence to show how the outcome of
the case may have already beendecided.

As for acts prejudicial to the
administration of justice, we must bear inmind a Herald report last week
that the state had claimed Justice Blackiehad a relationship with Tara White
while still on the bench, a claim hisdefence attorneys say they never heard
the public prosecutor make in court.Nor do they recall hearing the
prosecutor say that the relationship hadinfluenced the judge to
"unilaterally give out a judgement in her favour",as he was quoted as saying
in the Herald.

Attorney-General Andrew Chigovera said he could not
comment as "commentingcould prejudice those involved". Which is of course
exactly what the state,with a little help from its media, has already done.
Chaskalson and othersconcerned with the deteriorating administration of
justice in Zimbabwe haveevery right to comment on a system that is being
abused and subverted byministerial demagogues before our very
eyes.

UN Human Rights investigator Param Cumaraswamy this week described
Blackie'sarrest as "yet another clear systematic attack on the basic fabric
ofdemocracy, ie the rule of law". He said there was "reasonable cause"
tobelieve that the charges against Blackie were "an act of vendetta"
followinghis conviction of Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa.

"When
judges can be arrested, detained and charged on trumped up facts
forexercising their judicial functions, then there is no hope for the rule
oflaw in such countries," Cumaraswamy said.

How does that fit into
Moyo's facile theorising? Are the UN and its chiefinvestigator racist
because they haven't been hoodwinked by the chargesagainst Blackie? Why
hasn't Moyo attacked Cumaraswamy for expressing anopinion identical to
Chaskalson's?

Moyo has instead been resorting to weak puns about kangaroo
courts in Abujaand "Howard the coward". The kangaroo courts are, as
Chaskalson andCumaraswamy suggest, closer to home. And it is Mugabe, not
Howard, who ranaway from the Abuja meeting because he couldn't stand the
thought of beingcriticised by his peers. Howard was all too ready to tackle
Mugabe'sdishonest claims. But Mugabe chose to hide behind the excuse of an
unsignedinvitation - a story that later turned out to be
nonsense.

Chaskalson, by the way, did not use a newspaper to express his
views, as oneignorant Zanu PF lawyer suggested. He issued a statement that
was picked upby a variety of media.

Fuel supply problems deepenBarnabas
ThondhlanaZIMBABWE has failed to make good a weekly US$9 million payment to
theLibyans resulting in fuel shortages at service stations in urban areas,
ithas been established.

Zimbabwe owes the Libyans US$63 million for
fuel delivered since 2001 andthe defaulting in debt payments has resulted in
cancellation of the 30-daycredit facility. The government has now had to
resort to making US$9 millionweekly payments before fuel is released from
holding tanks.

The Libyans have continued to pump fuel into the
country albeit into bondedtanks in Mabvuku and business with state oil
company Noczim is over thecounter.

"The situation is tight," said
a Noczim official who requested anonymity.

Despite claims by Energy
minister Amos Midzi that Zimbabwe had adequate fueland that shortages would
not recur, fuel queues have resurfaced in mostparts of the capital and
outlying areas.

"Midzi is guilty of peddling falsehoods," the
official said.

Zimbabwe and Libya two weeks ago renewed a US$360
million fuel deal whichwill see the North African country continuing with
meeting 70% of Zimbabwe'sfuel needs in exchange for stakes in mines, hotels,
fuel tanks and thepipeline and land holdings. The Libyans would also benefit
from barter dealsin tea and beef.

President Mugabe signed the
deal with the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi twoweeks
ago.

However, since the deal was signed, no shipment of fuel has been
made.Stock-outs have become the order of the day as government scurries from
onefinancial institution to another in search of scarce foreign currency
tomake good the promised payment.

Fuel deliveries are only being
made on a haphazard basis asgovernment hasresorted to making daily purchases
from the Independent Petroleum Group(IPG) of Kuwait, which has leased Noczim
storage tanks in Msasa. IPG sellsthe fuel to its clients in the
region.

"The fuel we are using is only delivered after government
pur-chases it forcash from IPG, effectively pushing the country to a
hand-to-mouth position,"said another source close to the
developments.

Government was earlier this year warned against relying
solely on theLibyans for its fuel needs, with analysts saying this could
compromise thecountry in the event of failure to meet repayments. Mugabe is
understood tobe spearheading the drive to have all other fuel suppliers
excluded inpreference for his Libyan ally.

A deal in which two
financial institutions, Royal Bank and NMB Bank, wouldprovide US$180 million
to purchase fuel is in place and is also responsiblefor the little fuel
flowing.

"Royal Bank have offered US$30 million and NMB Bank US$150
million to ensurefuel stock-outs would not recur," said the source. "But
their contributionis minuscule when one considers that the country requires
about US$400million worth of fuel per annum to meet needs. This can only be
achieved ifgovernment reverses the Libyan deal and allows more players to
enter themarket."

Raj
Patel is a policy analyst at the Institute for Food and DevelopmentPolicy,
also known as Food First, based in Oakland, California. He arguesthat, if
the United States has a genuine desire to help feed the needy insouthern
Africa, supplying genetically modified food aid is not the answer.

The
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) recently chartered aship
-- The Liberty Star -- to deliver 36,000 tons of grain to an estimated13
million starving people in southern Africa.

The Malawi government
accepted the donation and Zimbabwe allowed the grainto be imported, so long
as it was milled.

Mozambique, however, will not let it cross its soil,
and Zambia has decidedthat it wants nothing to do with it. Why? Because the
United States cannotguarantee that the grain is not genetically modified
(GM).

This looks like morbid folly, like a dangerous game played with the
lives ofstarving people for political gain. This is precisely
true.

The U.S. government has been playing this game for well over a
decade; thefamine in southern Africa provides merely the latest
instalment.

An example: ever since the North American Free Trade
Agreement in 1995, theUnited States has been exporting unlabelled GM crops
to Mexico.

Last year, the Mexican Ministry of the Environment found that
farmers'traditional maize in two remote Mexican states, Oaxaca and Puebla,
had beencontaminated with DNA from GM corn.

Mexico is the world
centre of maize genetic diversity and home to maizevarieties developed by
farmers for millennia. Mexican maize is now unfit forsale in the European
Union.

The covert U.S. introduction of GM food into Africa is pernicious,
for fourreasons.

CAST-IRON GUARANTEES

First, there is mounting
evidence that GM crops may be unsafe. Researchersworking for the British
Food Standards Agency have discovered that, despitecast-iron guarantees from
the food industry, the DNA from GM crops iscapable of finding its way into
the human gut.

Without independent research, the unfettered marketing of
this food turnsevery consumer into a guinea pig.

Second, the covert
introduction of GM food in the Third World alsojeopardises the possibility
of an independent non-GM food policy within theEU. If the rest of the world
is already polluted by genetically modifiedorganisms (GMOs), there's not
much that European consumers will be able todo about labelling GMO
foods.

They will be able to count on there being GMOs in the food they
eat, whetherthey like it or not. Historians will find something familiar
here. In thecurrent war over food safety between the European Union and
United States,the proxy wars are being fought, once again, in the Third
World.

The third reason to be worried is that GM aid compromises the
sovereignty ofsouthern African countries.

These countries want safe
and secure access to nutritious food and don'tfeel that GM crops fit into
this agenda. When India railed against GM foodaid, a USAID official
responded "beggars can't be choosers".

A little history, please. The
reason poor countries now find themselvesholding a begging bowl is because
of the last gift they accepted from theUnited State and the EU: structural
adjustment policies.

These policies promised financial stability, growth
and prosperity. Theydelivered reduced levels of health, education enrolment
and employment, andincreased poverty, inequality and debt -- facts that the
United Nations andeven the World Bank are now, reluctantly, beginning to
admit.

These adjustment policies demanded a reduction of national grain
stockpilesbecause, the rhetoric ran, the market would provide.

The
notion of "saving lives through food aid" rings a little hollow if
weremember this; there were, prior to structural adjustment, ample ways
tofeed the people, without relying on GM food.

Southern African
countries had little choice about becoming beggars, butthey can choose what
to do next.

History instructs us here, too. Images similar to those that
accompaniedLive Aid are once again on our screens.

ALTERNATIVES
DEVELOPED

But these are not the same starving children. They are southern
African thistime, not Ethiopian.

In Ethiopia, despite a strong
U.S.-led push towards commercialisedagriculture, alternatives have been
developed in the wake of the famine.

Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher won
the Right Livelihood Award (thealternative Nobel Prize), by showing that it
is possible for Ethiopianagriculture to produce a nutritious and diverse
surplus without theintervention of the agri-chemical and "life science"
industries.

That these alternatives are being obscured by the debate over
GM foods isthe fourth, and perhaps most invidious, reason to resist U.S.
aid.

These alternatives hold great promise for the future, but what about
hereand now?

Several options already exist. Governments genuinely
concerned about thewelfare of southern Africans should give immediate
monetary aid so that foodgrown in other parts of the region, or other non-GM
polluted parts of theThird World, can be brought in.

The HIV/AIDS
pandemic, which has been immeasurably worsened by the famine,can be quickly
addressed by tearing up the World Trade Organisation'sstipulations on
intellectual property rights. So would land reform in theregion so that the
hungry might feed themselves.

There is a gamut of people-centred policies
that might be supported in theregion. Yet we hear nothing of them from the
U.S. government.

This is why, for many Africans, the deliveries from the
Liberty Star arecomparable to those deliveries meted out in Afghanistan
(when U.S. militaryaircraft dropped aid packages during the bombing campaign
against theTaliban).

Saluting the government, Libyan
brothersSandawanaIS the fuel price going to go up any time soon? There
is littlejustification for this on government's part since oil prices have
beenrelatively static, aside from the recent Iraq-induced price spike to
atwo-year high, and to a level when fuel prices were last
increased.

And we get our fuel at $150:US$1, mostly from the Libyans. The
governmentshould be whole-heartedly commended on the deal since it makes
excellenteconomic sense for us as a nation. We get cheap fuel - probably the
cheapestin the world for a poor country at 10 US cents a litre - and that
includesexcise duty!

It helps offset the crippling cost of
living, but does not seem to have hadany real dampening effect on inflation.
It must be tempting for governmentto hike the fuel price, as it is
undeniably the quickest way of raisingrevenue. Of course the problem is that
this would not be "newfarmer-friendly" and would push even official
inflation over 200% within acouple of months.

Government should
be commended for resisting the temptation to screwhard-pressed Zimbabweans
for more. But, with its skewed economics, there arebigger problems looming.
There are rising Zimkwacha costs at Noczim, andwhere are we with its debt?
What about how much fuel being smuggled toZambia and Mozambique? And can
current prices sustain repayments to ourLibyan brothers? At the moment, all
we've given them is a bit of CBZ andRTG, and there is much talk about
agricultural land with no commercialvalue. Realistically, we do not have the
assets in this country to leveragethis deal. Sandawana doubts we use the
much quoted US$40 million a month onfuel or US$480 million a year, since
that same figure has been banded aroundsince about 1984.

The
vehicle fleet has more than doubled on the roads over the past decade,and so
too, one would be led to believe, has the fuel bill. It's probablysomewhere
around US$1 billion a year - money we would be unable to find inour current
state. To put things in perspective, even if government was tobuy the US$12
million National Investment Trust stake in Zimplats for theLibyans, it would
amount to somewhere between four-to-eight days of fuel!And that's about the
best we have to offer. Talk that the parallel marketrate is back on the move
(apparently it's in the $720-$800 range), meansthat the fuel here is
probably going to be cheaper still, which you can seeone of two
ways.

THZ's last results

THZ released its last set of results
ahead of its break-up into threedivisions. The results were above
expectations, but there is already a lotof money in THZ ahead of the
break-up and any further upside in the shareprice is limited until the
release of details of the demerger. Still,Sandawana makes the point again
that this is a most successful company interms of stockmarket performance
over the past three years, gaining anastronomical 6 000% and if recent
demergers - eg Delta, TZI - are anythingto go by, the break-up will see
further value being unlocked. At divisionallevel, all three units seem to be
roaring along. Sandawana had suspectedthat THZ might demerge into four units
- Turnall, Steel, Hastt, and RubberProducts, but he understands that it will
now just be the three currentoperating divisions. Hastt, it appears, has got
a bit more competition fromthe second-hand farming equipment market, but the
option does remain furtherdown the line to demerge it from the Steel
division.

No real mystery

The Herald said on Tuesday that
investors were "baffled" as to why thestockmarket was tracking sideways, and
then quoted Kingdom analyst PatrickSaziwa hinting as to why this might be
the case. The upcoming Agribond.Rumours have been circulating in the market
that this will be a 15-yearissue with a 35% yield that pension funds and
insurance companies will berequired to subscribe to. But more worrying is
the story doing the roundsthat government is going to hike the prescribed
asset ratio to 55% from thecurrent 45%. The Independent sought clarification
from the Registrar ofPensions, but was told that an answer would only be
given next week. Anexpected increase has alarmed the funds, which are
already press-ganged intohaving nearly half their assets into bonds with
negative returns.

The market has tapered off as money has apparently
come out of shares intotwo-year TBs. This is so the funds can get up the
prescribed asset ratio asthey fear having to take up what looks to be a junk
bond.

Obviously, increasing the ratio to this level has very real
concerns for themarket, but it is also worrying that pensioners have to pay
for thegovernment's agriculture adventure as do the over-taxed working
populationwith higher premiums so that insurance companies can make up for
thenegative returns from investments.

The new
vatengesi?

Has business sold out to government? It's no secret where
their sympathieslay six months ago, but it appears there is a flurry of
support to help thenew farmers. Delta has weighed in, as has CFI and Seed Co
is expected tocome up with a similar input/financing scheme shortly.
Government hastrumpeted these moves on the front page of the Herald, which
has no doubtgot these companies some good PR for something they have been
doing foryears. Is this a good thing? If Sandawana is to wear his
shareholder's hatfor these companies, he has to say that the new "tough
love" affair withgovernment is probably, if not the only, way
forward.

Agro-industrial companies are going to struggle next year to
find adequategrains and cereals for operations and the best way to ensure
production isto cosy up to the supplier. Or, perhaps in this case, the
facilitator ofsupply.

There is no choice really. The market is going
through a flat spot at themoment, but it would be unfair to punish companies
for being collaboratorsas they are, at the end of it all, trying to act in
the best interest oftheir shareholders. As the ever-energetic and affable
Mutumwa Mawere said atthe launch of the CFI project, government is an
important part of thepartnership and must fulfil their side of the deal. And
while business has aduty to support the new farmers, it is not the
"Salvation Army".

The real Independence

"This is the real
1980. This year has been more like the 1980 we expected,"one white captain
of industry told Sandawana this week. "There has been moreactive
entrepreneurial black empowerment in the past six months than in the22 years
post-Independence," he said. Yes, those really white businessesmust really
feel under siege at the moment. Few can choose to ignore the
newhegemony.

There was some change to corporate Zimbabwe after
Independence, but it wasmostly using a small pool of black professionals and
much of it wascosmetic. The sustained "bad whites" government campaign over
the past fewyears has awoken the white brethren to a black anger they never
thought wasthere.

To some, it has imparted a new white
consciousness, to others, it has madethem increasingly bitter, while many
have chosen to leave the countryinstead. But contrary to the propaganda,
there isn't that much left in thehands of the "white"
few.

Pension funds own 80% of the stockmarket, and the majority of
beneficiariesare indigenous. The general idea appeared to be that after
agriculture,mining was next. But there is not much there (at least among the
listedcounters) because the real plum, Bindura Nickel, was largely placed
intoblack hands in a pre-emptive deal orchestrated by a leading
blackempowerment proponent a few years back, and it wasn't Sandawana.

GTZ bails outBlessing ZuluTHE German Agency for
Technical Co-operation in Zimbabwe (GTZ) has bailedout of the country
without completing major projects due to the prevailingpolitical situation,
the Zimbabwe Independent has learnt. It has relocatedto South
Africa.

"We normally complete projects we were implementing but in this
case we aregoing to abandon all of them," said a source at the German
embassy inHarare.

"This is not in line with established tradition
but because of theprevailing political situation in Zimbabwe, we had to
leave hastily."

GTZ is a government-sponsored body with worldwide
operations responsible forinternational co-operation. It works with more
than 130 partner countriesand supports 2 700 development projects and
programmes, chiefly undercommissions from the German
government.

"GTZ's aim is to improve the living conditions of the
people in developingand transitional countries," said the embassy
source

GTZ has been involved in both technical and financial co-operation
betweenthe governments of Zimbabwe and Germany.

"There was no
more use in having an office in Zimbabwe because there is nomore
government-to-government co-operation between the two countries and weare
thus moving to Pretoria," said the source.

Projects that were being
funded by GTZ include: post-graduate training inagriculture, forestry, and
environmental protection.

GTZ was involved in projects such as soil
erosion control, indigenousresource management and irrigation programmes in
communal areas.

The hardest hit projects will be the wildlife
conservation projects as mostother donors have already pulled out citing
political problems in thecountry.

"The GTZ was very much involved in
the International Rhino Foundation,assisting in the acquisition of a
helicopter and operating staff. Thehelicopter was used to create Intensive
Protection Zones that have provedcrucial to the Zimbabwe rhino conservation
strategy and anti-poachingactivities," said the source.

ANC attacks TsvangiraiOwn CorrespondentTHE
African National Congress of South Africa has attacked oppositionMovement
for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai for his claim thatthe South
African government was dictatorial and would soon play the racecard to cover
its policy failures.

Ngonyama was responding to
assertions by Tsvangirai in an interview with theM&G last
month.

"Tsvangirai's comments are those of a desperate person out to
prove a pointto his masters," said Ngonyama.

"He makes a big
mistake by breaking bridges with parties he should beworking with if he is
genuine about finding solutions in Zimbabwe.

"It is not up to
President Mbeki or (Nigerian President Olusegun) Obasanjoto legitimise
Mugabe. It is the people of Zimbabwe who legitimise Mugabethrough the ballot
box," he said.

Ngonyama said Tsvangirai liked labelling African
leaders dictators withoutexpanding on his understanding of a dictator. "It
seems a dictator is aperson he disagrees with.

"He would label
anybody who agrees with him a democrat - even a formeroppressor. Tsvangirai
always projects himself as some kind of a

super-democrat," he
said.

On Tsvangirai's assertion that Zimbabweans did not want the
unity governmentwhich Mbeki and Obasanjo were pushing Ngonyama said
Zimbabweans must decidethat.

"He cannot speak for the people
without consulting them. The only reason wepulled out of negotiations with
the MDC and Zanu-PF on a unity governmentwas because of the court case
against Morgan - not because the people wereagainst the idea," he said. -
M&G.

This comes amid allegations that Zimbabwe has hiked haulage
tariffs by US$3400, an increase of 30%, the Zimbabwe Independent heard this
week.

According to the August issue of the Travel Industry Review of
SouthernAfrica, Blue Train executive manager Ntahli Borotho said haulage
costs inZimbabwe were now 230% more than in Botswana.

She said
that Zimbabwe was demanding more to maintain the tracks.

"We have
asked the National Railways of Zimbabwe to bill us in rands orZimbabwean
dollars, but negotiations have been unsuccessful," Borotho said,adding it
was becoming uneconomic to run the route.

Double occupancy rates
listed for 2003 have already increased by almost R6000 to R23 241 for the
two-night, two-day trip.

Borotho said 2003 schedules were being
prepared in the hope that a solutionmight be found after she approached
Zimbabwe's Ministry of Transport andCommunications last month to intervene
in the matter.

Indications were that the haulage tariffs could
decrease in December for thebeauty pageant at Victoria Falls, but assurances
were needed that rate cutswould be permanent.

Barotho said the
company would like to continue the route amid fears thatthe Zimbabwean
industry and ground handlers would be the ones to feel
thepinch.

"The cancellation will have a major ripple effect and
we are sad that wefind ourselves in a position where we can't support them,"
she said.

"It's going to take a lot of effort to market the route in
future, becauseconditions have become so unpredictable. Chances are slim
that it will be onour network next year."

The Blue Train ferries
wealthy foreign tourists into the country. It is asubsidiary of
Spoornet.

The cancellation of the train will further impact
negatively on the tourismindustry, which has been on a slump since the
violent seizures of commercialfarms in 2000. Earnings dropped from $6
billion in 1999 to $2 billion in2000.

Events like the solar
eclipse last year did not attract the much-neededrevenue as tourists
preferred to watch it from Zambia.

The Independent reported last year
that over 20 000 tourists had booked intoZambian hotels for the eclipse, a
figure thought to be four times biggerthan those hosted by Zimbabwe. Zambia
also got the nod ahead of Zimbabwe byEclipse Safari, a prestigious and
high-profile tour group which hadoriginally intended to book in
Zimbabwe.

C'wealth NGO slams Zim local electionsBlessing
ZuluTHE Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) has called on
theinternational community to reject the forthcoming council elections
inZimbabwe.

CHRI is an independent, non-partisan, international
non-governmentalorganisation, mandated to ensure the realisation of human
rights in theCommonwealth.

In a strongly-worded statement, CHRI
spokesperson Maja Daruwala said actionmust be taken on the abuse of human
rights in Zimbabwe.

"If we in the international community do not
express our great concern atthe violations of fundamental human rights in
Zimbabwe, we are as culpableas the draconian regime currently inflicting
such suffering on the people ofZimbabwe," she said.

She said the
political environment was not conducive for the holding of freeand fair
elections.

"The Zimbabwe government's repressive campaign against the
oppositionparties in the country has been too profound and too pervasive to
allow forfree and fair elections," she said.

"Human rights abuses
have included incidents of violent repression,manipulation of registration
requirements and prevention of the exercise ofpolitical rights by opposition
political parties."

"Legitimacy cannot be attained through violence
and electoral manipulation,"said Daruwala. "The human rights of the people
of Zimbabwe must berespected."

She said if the international
community did not act the problems experiencedduring the controversial
presidential election would recur.

"History will repeat itself if
there is no cry of outrage from theinternational community. On March 9/11
2002, the presidential election washeld in Zimbabwe amid a climate of
instigated fear, allegations of lack ofadequate polling stations, a heavy
presence of Zanu PF militias and secretstate agents from the Central
Intelligence Organisation, but voters werestill determined to exercise their
right to vote," Daruwala said.

"Local and international election
observers agreed with the Zimbabweanopposition that the presidential
election was neither free nor fair."

She said the situation in the
country had not changed.

"Nothing in the political climate in
Zimbabwe has changed since thiselection to indicate more respect for human
rights and more open and faircontest for the councillors' seats," she
said.

"To the contrary, the decline of Zimbabwe's economy and
politicalinstability has rapidly increased, resulting in a disincentive for
foreigninvestment, creation of a refugee crisis, and general reduction of
trade inthe region. The emerging food shortage, created largely by the
government'spolicies and actions, continues to daily threaten the lives and
well-beingof Zimbabweans," Daruwala said.

The opposition Movement
for Democratic Change is challenging both thepresidential and the council
elections. The presidential election is beingchallenged on the grounds it
was neither free nor fair and, in theforthcoming council elections the party
is alleging that its members werebarred from registering by members of the
ruling Zanu PF party

Zim GDP to decline furtherStaff WriterZIMBABWE'S
gross domestic product (GDP) will decline for three years in arow with a
projected minus 10,6% for this year, the International MonetaryFund has
said.

In its latest report - World Economic Outlook - released this week,
the IMFanticipates that Zimbabwe's GDP will next year fell by minus 2,8%. In
2001GDP declined by minus 8%.

Despite Zimbabwe's economic
shrinkage, neighbouring states are expanding.South Africa's economy is
expected to grow by 6,3%. South Africa used to beZimbabwe's biggest
competitor and trading partner in the region.

Mozambique, which has
since overtaken Zimbabwe as South Africa's largesttrading partner, is
expected to see its economy grow by 5,6%.

In the report, the IMF said
fiscal indiscipline had led to an expanded moneysupply growth in certain
parts of the continent, including Zimbabwe.

Soldiers put on high alertAugustine MukaroAS
official paranoia about a British invasion of Zimbabwe increases,government
has deployed heavily armed soldiers and police to guard allairstrips
throughout the country, it has emerged.

Sources said uniformed forces
have been deployed to guard all strategicpoints including airstrips, border
posts and other security points such asfuel storage tanks and the Zimbabwe
Broadcasting Corporation.

The high alert was prompted by the presence
of British troops doing routinemilitary exercises in South Africa. Press
reports that the troops wereplanning an invasion were dismissed by the
British government which said themilitary exercises were normal training
manoeuvres.

The Independent heard this week that the government had
cancelled all leavefor the uniformed forces until the end of the
year.

"All military establishments have been put on high alert ahead
of thealleged possible invasion. Police have actually intensified
road-blockscurrently being manned by armed riot-police and the army,"
sources said.

On his return from the Earth Summit earlier this month,
President Mugabetold his supporters at Harare International Airport that
some farmers had"been going to Britain and asking Britain to impose
sanctions on us, askingBritain to send troops to Zimbabwe; sanctions so that
they can operate as adeterrent on us and operate in their favour, troops so
Britain can overthrowour government and put in place a government deriving
from MDC."

The government also believes that the opposition MDC is
trying to smugglefood into the country through airstrips. The government has
alreadyconfiscated food aid imported by the MDC.

Zimbabwe Defence
Forces spokesman Squadron Leader Colonel Mukotekwa said hewas not aware of
any such deployments.

"The military authorities are not aware of any
deployment at airstrips,neither are the authorities aware of military
establishments on high alert,"Mukotekwa said.

"Having said that,
it is not the tradition of the military to discussmilitary deployments or
manoeuvres with the public press."

Sources at remote mining centres,
farms and ranch airstrips confirmed to theIndependent this week that
soldiers were camped at the airstrips and noexplanation had been given in
regard to their presence.

Recently technical representatives of a
major South African mining housewere confronted by several armed soldiers
and a policeman as theydisembarked from a small plane at a private
airstrip.

The police insisted on searching the plane before anyone
disembarked sayingthey were looking for smuggled.

THE government's Department of Information and Publicity which
mastermindeda whirlwind propaganda drive on behalf of PresidentMugabe at
the recent Earth Summit in Johannesburg is now involved in a widerplan to
target British Prime Minister Tony Blair.It emerged this week that the
department was sponsoring a London-basedorganisation called Africa Strategy
to mobilise Zimbabweans and othermigrants from Africa to petition Blair in
support of President Mugabe.Led by former spokesmanfor the Ugandan terrorist
move-ment, the Lord'sResistance Army David Nyekorach-Matsanga, Africa
Strategy will todaymobilise people to demonstrate and present a petition at
Blair's officialresidence, Number 10 Downing Street, in support of
Mugabe.This will follow a two-day conference which began yesterday at
AddingtonPalace in Croydon near London aimed at marketing Mugabe's current
landrevolution. The conference, called "Why Zimbabwe Matters: The Truth
AboutThe Land Distribution Programme", has been organised to appear like a
civicinitiative. But information at hand shows that the Department of
Informationand Publicity in the Office of the President has been involved in
organisingthe event which is designed to endorse Mugabe's anti-imperialist
stance.Included in the conference line-up are George Shire, who is based at
theOpen University at Milton Keynes and appears frequently on
Britishtelevision to defend Mugabe's policies, Chinondidyachii Mararike of
DeviraMhere who is based in Birmingham, Zimbabwe High Commissioner
SimbarasheMumbengegwi, and academics Dan Nabudere of the Centre for
ConflictResolution in Uganda and Dr JA Obita. Representatives of Zimbabwe
farmers'unions have also been invited.Speaking from Zimbabwe by
satellite link today will be Agriculture ministerJoseph Made, Parliamentary
Speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa and officials fromForeign Affairs, the Department
of Information and the Zimbabwe TourismAuthority.The organisers promise
that there will be "many other speakers" from Europe,Africa and North
America. British MPs will attend as observers, they say."Zimbabwe is part of
us and we can't allow wrong British foreign policy tospoil this nation,"
Matsanga wrote to Africa Strategy members recently."This is the chance for
the government of Zimbabwe and those who supportPresident Mugabe to drive
their message home."Also on the mailing list of Africa Strategy are
Information ministerJonathan Moyo, permanent secretary George Charamba, and
ZBC's SupaMandiwanzira.Mandiwanzira said he had not been invited to
participate but met Matsangawhen he was an election observer this
year.Mararike was due to speak yesterday as was Mumbengegwi and Shire. A
"youthrepresentative" from Zimbabwe was also due to speak. Delegates to
theconference were asked to pay ú40 per person to cover the costs of
theconference into an account at the Alliance & Leicester bank, 10
WestowStreet, Crystal Palace.Matsanga said in a release publicising the
event that the conference willdiscuss Zimbabwe's victimisation by
international donor organisations suchas the International Monetary
Fund."Africa Strategy has evidence that a country is targeted for
leadershipchange or for a change in the behaviour of its current
leadership," Matsangatold members."The victim country is broken, either
through pressures applied primarilyfrom the Western foreign aid donor and
IMF embargoes combined withdiplomatic pressure and isolation."A British
High Commission spokesman said the UK government was aware of themeeting and
that anybody in Britain was free to express their views.

Govt keeps parliament in abeyanceVincent
KahiyaTHE Parliament of Zimbabwe has only sat nine times in the last eight
monthsraising fears that the executive is sidelining the
legislature.

Observers this week said the executive had become
increasingly sensitive tocriticism and scrutiny hence the need to emasculate
parliament by limitingthe number of sittings which ultimately mean fewer
debates.

Parliament was only being convened to pass the Zanu PF
government'slegislation and not debate issues of national importance, they
said.

Parliament adjourned on Wednesday last week after passing the
LandAcquisition Amendment Bill and is scheduled to reconvene on October
1.

It adjourned on January 31 after passing the Access to Information
andProtection of Privacy Bill (later Aippa) on January 31. It met again on
May7 and 8 to pass the Land Acquisition Amendment Bill which regularised
thePresidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act invoked last year to enable
thegovernment to proceed with its land reform programme.

The
House met on July 23 for the opening of parliament by President RobertMugabe
and the sitting continued on July 25 and 30.

The House met again on
September 10 and 11 to debate the president's speechand then on September 17
and 18 to debate and pass the Land Acquisition ActAmendment
Bill.

Opposition Movement for Democratic Change secretary for legal
affairs, DavidColtart, yesterday said it had become obvious that there was
an attempt toundermine parliament by adjourning for as long as
possible.

"Since the enactment of the Public Order and Security Act,
we have had anumber of meetings cancelled and in the few that we have had,
we had to bevery careful what we said," said Coltart.

"Parliament
gave us the opportunity and immunity to speak freely and exposethese guys
without fear of being prosecuted.

"What we are seeing is a further
cutback on the democratic space. They justhate it every time we go to
parliament and embarrass them," said Coltart.

Observers said despite
parliamentary reforms effected in the past two years,which were meant to
make parliament a more effective institution, the fourthsession of
parliament - notwithstanding the presence of a strongopposition - had failed
to make the executive accountable.

Political scientist Professor
Masipula Sithole said the current parliamenthad only been effective in
passing draconian legislation like the PublicOrder and Security Act (Posa)
and Aippa.

"There is nothing progressive about our parliament," said
Sithole.

"It is only effective in passing draconian legislation - I
have in mind Posaand Aippa. There is need for constitutional change to make
the presidentaccountable to parliament for every major thing he does," he
said.

Observers said parliament had failed to make ministers
accountableespecially during the question and answer
sessions.

"Ministers rarely give complete answers and they have been
allowed to getaway with murder," said an analyst involved in parliamentary
reform.

Govt moves to limit contempt-of-court cases against
itStaff writerTHE government plans to amend the Criminal Procedure and
Evidence Act toprevent the courts from instituting contempt of court charges
against anyonewho makes contemptuous comments outside the courts, unless
given expressauthority to proceed by the Attorney-General.

The
amendment, which will come before parliament next month under theGeneral
Laws Amendment Bill (No2), will limit the powers of the courts toinstitute
contempt of court proceedings. A court will only be able toproceed with such
charges on its own motion if the contemptuous act isperformed within a court
or when enforcing an order of a court.

The proposed amendment has
raised eyebrows as it comes hard on the heels ofthe contempt of court charge
against Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa andInformation and Publicity
permanent secretary George Charamba.

Chinamasa was charged with
contempt for criticising the sentences slapped onthree Americans accused of
sabotage, while Charamba's charge stemmed fromhis criticism of a court order
barring the police from attending ZimbabweCongress of Trade Unions'
meetings.

Legal experts said the proposed legislation was open to
abuse as it gave theAG the prerogative to prosecute or not. They said the
selective applicationof the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy
Act and the PublicOrder and Security Act bolstered the view that the law was
open to abuse.

"The likely scenario if that Bill is passed into law
is that the governmentwould be able to attack the courts for unpopular
judgements with impunityand not be censured but would be quick to press
charges on those whocriticise pro-government rulings," said one lawyer who
requestedanonymity. - Staff Writer.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------Family
has handed over 47% of estateHARARE The Oppenheimer family has agreed to
hand over to Zimbabwe a further30000ha of its Debshan Estate, leaving it
with just more than half of thefarm, said the Herald, citing Vice- President
Joseph Msika.

The Oppenheimers, SA's richest family, also gave Z10m to
help new farmers tosettle on the vacated land.

The family of De Beers
chairman Nicky Oppenheimer had now given thegovernment 65000ha, or 47% of
the cattle ranch in the south of the country,the Herald reported.

"We
appreciate and are willing to negotiate with people like Debshan who
arewilling to live side by side with the new farmers," Msika said at a rally
onthe ranch.

The donation comes after Zimbabwe's government ordered
2900 white commercialfarmers to leave their farms without paying them
compensation.

The official Herald newspaper reported yesterday that
Zimbabwe would nothost a special panel of jurists to investigate the
country's judicialindependence as long as it had Britons on it.

"If
someone is coming from the UK, the answer is no' because they havealready
made up their mind about us," said Justice Minister PatrickChinamasa. "We
will only entertain people with an open mind," he said.

On Monday the
International Commission of Jurists accused the Zimbabwegovernment of
obstructing a visit by one of its factfinding teams despitehaving been
formally invited.

"The government's opposition to any outside scrutiny is
a serious blow tothe rule of law in Zimbabwe," it said.

In another
development in Zimbabwe, a journalist who wrote an article thismonth
claiming the country's police chief was unwell had been sentenced tothree
months in jail under the Police Act, his lawyer said.

On September 9
Tawanda Majoni wrote an article in the Daily Mirrornewspaper, alleging
police commissioner Augustine Chihuri was unhealthy andunfit for duty. The
article was immediately dismissed as untrue. Sapa-AFP

Minister still quiet about Zim crisisLOUIS TRICHARDT - While
South African troops are deployed at high cost inforeign countries like
Burundi, a desperate situation is developing on theborder between South
Africa and Zimbabwe, as a direct result of the absenceof the South African
security forces.

This criticism was contained in an urgent letter
addressed to the Ministerof Defence, Mr Patrick Lekota, by the Soutpansberg
District AgriculturalUnion (DAU) and faxed through to him last
week.

The letter, which was at first returned to the Agricultural Union
by theMinister's Office, because it was written in Afrikaans, was then
dulytranslated into English for the Minister. Although it was marked as
urgent,no reply has as yet been received.

The Soutpansberg DAU
requested the minister in the letter for his urgentattention for the
situation developing along the country's Northern border.The DAU also
offered the Minister assistance in handling the crisis on anorganised
scale.

The DAU called the minister's attention to the fact that literally
thousandsof the victims of the man made catastrophe in Zimbabwe are
streamingsouthwards across the border.

"They are pouring across the
border, across us and across our possessions.These people are hungry and
desperate and the whole situation placesartificial pressure on the local
agricultural community."

Asked about the response from the Minister, a
spokesperson for the DAU saidthis week that no reply or reaction has been
received on their urgentrequest to address the crisis on the
border.

The spokesperson said the fact that millions of rands are
available forforeign adventures, while the local defence spending is
drastically curbed,would seem to suggest an unbelievably short sighted,
na´ve and irresponsibleapproach.

"Nobody can expect of us to be
satisfied with a situation which weexperience as a totally unrealistic
prioritisation of the country's securityneeds."

The spokesperson said
the dangerous vacuum created by the obvious absence ofa sufficient SANDF
presence on the border, is drastically increasing theburden on the
agricultural community to take control of its own safety andsecurity in
addition to its primary task of producing food for the country.

The food crisis in six sub-Saharan
countries, which had put up to 14-millionpeople at risk, was worsening
faster than predicted.

The crisis would therefore be high on the agenda
of the Southern AfricanDevelopment Community (SADC) summit, Deputy Foreign
Minister Aziz Pahad saidyesterday.

Pahad's statement comes against
the backdrop of the massive food aid neededin Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi,
where millions face starvation.

Some estimates have suggested that tons
of food should already be movinginto those countries if a difference is to
be made to the most vulnerable.

There have also been dire predictions of
the explosive combination ofstarvation and HIV/AIDS claiming many
lives.

Pahad said the combination of hunger and HIV/AIDS, which made
people morevulnerable, was one of the main reasons for the rapid
deterioration in thesituation across the region.

The summit, which
begins today in Luanda, Angola with a meeting ofofficials, to be followed by
a meeting of ministers and later next week byheads of state, would also
discuss a "deeper" plan to create food securityin the region, Pahad
said.

It would also formulate a response to the current
crisis.

Pahad said it was estimated that $505m in food aid was needed to
address thecrisis. Donor countries had already pledged 36% of this amount
and the WorldFood Programme was confident of securing a further 30%, leaving
34% stilloutstanding.

He said it was hoped that further negotiations
and discussions with donorcountries such as the US, Japan and the European
Union would make up theshortage.

Pahad said he did not believe donors
would allow President Robert Mugabe andhis Zanu-PF to give food aid to only
his political supporters.

The general principle was that food aid was
distributed throughnongovernmental organisations, and as far as he was
concerned this alsoapplied to Zimbabwe.

In spite of a new election
crisis in Zimbabwe and the deepening food crisis,Zimbabwe is not on the
agenda for the summit.

Pahad said this was the official agenda produced
by the SADC secretariat anddid not discount heads of state calling for a
report on the situation in thecountry, or discussing it in a closed
session.

The summit will also discuss the restructuring of SADC
institutions,developments in the African Union and the New Partnership for
Africa'sDevelopment.

The
Commonwealth Chairpersons' Committee on Zimbabwe, consisting of thePrime
Minister of Australia, Rt Hon John Howard, the President of Nigeria,HE Chief
Olusegun Obasanjo, and the President of South Africa, HE Mr ThaboMbeki, met
in Abuja, Nigeria, on 23 September 2002, to discuss the situationin
Zimbabwe. The Commonwealth Secretary-General, Rt Hon Don
McKinnon,participated in the discussions.

Following a review of
recent political developments in Zimbabwe, theCommittee recalled that in
their Marlborough House Statement of 19 March2002, they had mandated the
President of Nigeria and the President of SouthAfrica to continue to
actively promote the process of reconciliation inZimbabwe and to appoint
special representatives to remain engaged with allthe parties concerned
towards this end. The Committee had also mandated theCommonwealth
Secretary-General to engage with the Government of Zimbabwe toensure that
the specific recommendations from the Commonwealth ObserverGroup (COG) to
the March Presidential elections were respected and to remainactively
engaged with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) inpromoting
transparent, equitable and sustainable measures of land reform
inZimbabwe.

The Committee deeply regretted that the process of
reconciliationfacilitated by the Special Envoys of the President of Nigeria
and thePresident of South Africa had stalled. The Secretary-General reported
thatas a consequence, the level of suspicion, division and hostility between
thevarious parties in Zimbabwe has increased considerably in recent months
andthat reports of harassment of the political opposition, the press
andsections of the judiciary continued.

The Committee was
disappointed to note that despite repeated efforts,including in
collaboration with regional Commonwealth Heads of Government,the
Commonwealth Secretary-General had been unable to establish a dialoguewith
the Government of Zimbabwe in fulfilment of his mandates.

The Committee
was also deeply disappointed that the President of Zimbabwehad not taken up
their invitation to come to Abuja to dialogue with them.

The Committee
also called on the Government of Zimbabwe to engage with theCommonwealth
Secretary-General at an early opportunity on the basis of themandates given
to him.

Whilst all members of the 'Troika' strongly believe that efforts
to engagethe Government of Zimbabwe should continue, one member, Australia,
supportedthe full suspension of Zimbabwe with immediate effect whilst the
othermembers wish to see how Zimbabwe responds to the Marlborough House
Statementover the next six months as foreshadowed in that Statement, at
which pointstronger measures might need to be considered.

Herald
ReporterPEOPLE who are hoarding basic goods and selling them above the
stipulatedGovernment prices are "saboteurs and enemies of the State", the
Minister ofHome Affairs, Cde Kembo Mohadi, said yesterday.

The
minister also accused the local private media of peddling "lies andsenseless
propaganda" about the country's political leadership.

Cde Mohadi said
unscrupulous business people were compounding problems inthe country by
hoarding basic commodities which they later sold abovestipulated
prices.

This was resulting in artificial shortages causing suffering to
the masses.

"The Government shall not stand aside and watch these acts of
sabotage benton fomenting discontent among the populace," warned Cde
Mohadi.

The minister was addressing 106 graduating police officers at the
MorrisDepot in Harare.

He said while a flourishing print media was
applauded, some journalists fromthe so-called independent Press had to be
condemned for deliberatelytargeting personal lives of high-ranking
Government officials.

They are distorting facts to suit the dictates of
their colonial masters, headded.

"This practice of hate campaign is
irrational, diabolic and unacceptable ina democratic society where rights of
individuals deserve the same protectionas those of these social miscreants,"
Cde Mohadi said.

"The propensity to project a dark picture of the country
by the privatemedia to the international community can be no worse abuse of
freedom ofexpression than what they seek to purport."

He told the
graduating officers that the bitterness of colonial rule andsubsequent
sacrifices made by Zimbabweans to dislodge the oppressors shouldfind meaning
in the country's security institutions.

Although the black majority was
now in control of the instruments ofgovernance, said the minister, the
challenge lay in complete emancipation.

"Sovereignty will remain hollow,
nominal, marginal and indeed meaninglessuntil and unless our people have
access to a piece of land in their countryof birth.

"The land, when
required, shall continue to come in significant quantitiesas the Government
endeavours to inject value and content in ourindependence, sovereignty and
self determination."

He said the historical, social, political and
economic order crafted bycolonialism and heavily skewed in favour of
sectional white interests had tobe redressed.

"The land, which is the
backbone of the economy and the means to achievingsustainable economic
development, must be availed to its rightful owners whoare the majority
black people of this country."

The graduating officers, who included 22
women, were integrated into theregular police force from the constabulary
branch.

Cde Mohadi said that their bestowal was a realisation of the
"impeccable"leadership qualities and competences exhibited by the incumbents
in thedischarge of duty.

Nineteen resolutions were adopted by the
police chiefs and ratified by thecouncil of ministers from the African
sub-region.

"These resolutions must inevitably translate into proficient
policing of theregion."

A code of conduct for police officers in the
region was adopted during themeeting which, among other things, emphasises
respect of human life andproperty rights.

Cde Mohadi urged the
graduands to remain patriotic, resolute and determinedin ensuring that
subtle, imperceptible and sublime forms of imperialism andcolonialism do not
undermine the aspirations of Zimbabweans.

"The upsurge of terrorism the
world over has heralded the need forpro-active strategies of combating it in
the Southern Africa sub-region."

He said the proposed establishment of an
anti-terrorism centre in Harare wasa welcome development in a society which
had witnessed "ugly scenes ofterrorism since the commencement of our land
reforms in 2000".

The Zimbabwe police was commended for spreading the
tentacles of peace andjustice to flash points around the globe.

The
local force has been engaged on tours of duty in Angola, Somalia,Kosovo,
East Timor

and Sierra Leone.

The current economic problems
bedevilling the country together with thedevastating effects of drought, he
said, are only transitory.

"The nation is set to enjoy the full value of
the current agrarianrevolution," the minister said.